Abstract

Between 1920 and 1921, Italian emigration to the United States dropped by 85% after the Emergency Quota Act, a severely restrictive immigration law, was passed by the US Congress. Using newly digitized data from Italian historical censuses in a difference-in-differences setting, we leverage variation in exposure across Italian districts to this large restriction on human mobility. More exposed districts display a sizable population increase. Moreover, the policy substantially hampered the adoption of labor-saving technology. Consistent with directed technology adoption theory, manufacturing employment increased markedly, and evidence suggests that "missing migrants," whose migration was inhibited by the Act, drive this result.

Abstract

Patent protection is the most prevalent form of intellectual property protection, yet its impact on innovation and economic growth remains unclear. I introduce a difference-in-differences strategy exploiting the appointment of patent examiners at the U.S. Patent Office from 1919 to 1938. Newly appointed examiners grant 14% more patents to inventors from their home regions. Using examiners' appointments to isolate exogenous spatial variation in patent protection over time, I find that increased patenting fosters growth in manufacturing and income per capita. Increased patenting generates knowledge spillovers, which amplify subsequent innovation, in sectors technologically related to those of the newly appointed examiners.

Abstract

I examine how the Progressive-era Settlement movement impacted immigrant assimilation in the US between 1880 and 1940. Settlements provided job training, childcare, and language classes to immigrants in urban areas. Using an individual-level triple difference that leverages across-neighborhood, cross-cohort, and over-time variation in settlement exposure, I find that settlements had positive labor-market effects for men but not for women and increased segregation. These responses persisted into the generation exposed to settlements during childhood. The heterogeneous effects of settlements partly stemmed from increased fertility that excluded women from labor markets, particularly among immigrants from countries with more conservative gender norms.

Abstract

We document that the names of newly elected politicians become more popular following their election. Their prevalence is correlated with county-level voting and with individual-level political behavior. We apply this insight to measure the political preferences of 18 million US census records and examine their intergenerational transmission from 1830 to 1940. Family and political environment account for comparable shares of variation in individual political preferences. Intergenerational persistence is 45% weaker when parental political views conflict with local political conditions. Transmission varies over time: political preferences were more mobile in the nineteenth century and became considerably more persistent between 1900 and 1940. Transmission displays similarly large spatial variation and is non-monotonic in electoral competition. These findings document how environmental factors influence the transmission of political identity across generations.

Abstract

This paper provides novel evidence on how technological change shaped women's labor market participation, fertility, and marriage in 19th-century Massachusetts. We distinguish between the sewing machine's dual role as a manufacturing technology and as a household appliance. Using rich town- and individual-level longitudinal data, we show that this innovation induced divergent responses across the wealth distribution. Women from lower-wealth households increased labor supply, delaying marriage and reducing fertility. In contrast, for wealthier women, the sewing machine functioned as a domestic efficiency tool, enabling earlier family formation and greater civic engagement while reducing market work. Our findings demonstrate how household constraints and social norms mediate the effects of labor-saving technologies, suggesting that technological progress can reinforce inequality by influencing women's economic and social roles.

Abstract

We study how intergroup contact among immigrants shapes national identity formation within migrant communities and in their places of origin. We assemble a new dataset on Italian migrants to the U.S. between 1892 and 1924 by linking population census records to Ellis Island passenger lists, which report migrants’ municipalities of origin. In the U.S., exposure to more diverse Italian communities fosters shared national identity, as measured by national naming choices and intergroup marriage, while reducing assimilation into American society. In Italy, municipalities whose migrants were exposed to more diverse communities abroad exhibit lower cultural particularism. Our findings uncover a nation-building effect of intergroup contact within immigrant communities, extending from immigrant communities abroad to migrants’ places of origin.

Abstract

This paper examines whether, in response to natural disasters, industrial policy can shape innovation toward risk-mitigating technologies. We study the 1871 Chicago Fire and the consequent policy banning wooden construction. Using a triple differences framework, we find that construction innovation and manufacturing in Chicago increased sharply, with positive spillovers into related sectors. To distinguish the effects of the Fire and the policy, we compare wood and non-wood construction, showing that gains were concentrated in non-wood construction. Additionally, we study the 1872 Boston Fire, where no regulations were implemented, and find modest effects on construction patenting and manufacturing.

Abstract

Does racial discrimination affect which inventors are granted patents? We study this question in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century United States. We begin by documenting that individuals with Black-sounding surnames were one-fourth as likely to patent as those with white-sounding surnames, even conditioning on race. To test whether discrimination in the patenting process contributed to this gap, we use lynching episodes---acts of extreme violence over this period that disproportionately targeted Black Americans---as shocks to the racial salience of victims' surnames. Following an episode, patents granted to inventors sharing the victim’s surname decline over the following five years, with the largest effect immediately after the shock. The evidence is consistent with lynching episodes changing the racial signal conveyed by surnames. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that removing surname-based racial signals would reduce the patenting gap between Black- and white-sounding inventors by 24 percent. Our findings highlight that racial discrimination can shape patenting not only through barriers to entering innovation, but also among individuals already engaged in the innovation process.

Abstract

The cross-country diffusion of technology is a central driver of growth and economic convergence. We provide novel evidence that out-migration can foster technology transfer from destination to origin countries. We construct an individual-level dataset linking four million immigrants in the US to the UK census (1870-1930) and digitize the universe of British patents granted in the nineteenth century. Combining patent text analysis with a shift-share design leveraging shocks to US innovation, we document that migration ties facilitated the diffusion of US technology to the UK. Return migration was important, but migrants' social networks also facilitated technology transfer without physical return.

Abstract

We show that U.S. counties hit harder by the 1918 influenza pandemic became both more religious and more science-oriented, a result at odds with the existing literature that documents a negative relationship between religiosity and science. Using a newly assembled name-based measure of religiosity, we find that this coexistence was driven by heterogeneous responses: individuals from more religious backgrounds became more religious, while those from less religious backgrounds were more likely to turn toward science. As a result, the pandemic widened preexisting differences in religiosity and increased polarization within society.

Work in progress.